The world's tallest
mountain technically is not Mount Everest.
Mount Everest is the tallest mountain above sea
level, but if we're talking sheer height here, base to summit, then the tallest
mountain is Mauna Kea on the Island of Hawaii.
Here's how it breaks down:
Everest stands 29,035 feet above sea level. Mauna Kea
only stands 13,796 feet above seal level, but the mountain extends about 19,700
feet below the Pacific Ocean. Over half of it is submerged.
That puts the total height of Mauna Kea at about 33,500
feet — nearly a mile taller than Everest.
Mauna Kea is actually an inactive volcano on the big
island of Hawaii. It is about a million years old, created when the Pacific tectonic plate moved over the Hawaiian hotspot —
a plume of liquid magma from deep inside Earth. It last erupted about
4,600 years ago.
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